iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

While 2020 and 2021 brought us plenty of apps that capitalized on the remote work boom, 2022 feels a bit like a return to normalcy.

The best apps of the year spanned a wide range of categories, including some surprising new ones. We’ve seen a boom in AI tools for creatives, for instance, along with more ways to take control of your content and privacy. Clever productivity tools haven’t gone away either, with several great new apps for getting things done.

As with previous years, this list focuses on apps, websites, and extensions that either launched over the past year or received substantial new updates. With any luck, it’ll help you discover some gems you’ll use all the time. Here are the best new apps that 2022 had to offer.

"Unleash your students creativity with this updated collection of awesome iPad apps. These are drawing apps we curated from iTunes App Store specifically for middle school students.  You can use these applications with your students to engage them in a wide variety of creative and multimodal activities that include drawing, sketching, painting, doodling and many more. We invite you to check them out and share with us your feedback. For more apps for middle school students check out this page."

These image recognition apps let you identify coins, plants, products, and much more with your phone's camera.

The mobile application is the fastest growing digital market. According to all projections, it will continue to rise at a significant rate mostly due to increased penetration of the internet and smartphones. Various researchers predict that the mobile application market will reach $188.9B worldwide by the end of 2020. At the same time, many mavericks around the world use ios app development not only to make a fortune but also to take a stand, promote their cause and fight social and environmental issues. Let’s dive into some exciting, mobile app projects made by students.

Digital scrapbooking is an important multimodal literacy where learners get to practice their creative thinking, experimenting with a variety of shapes and layouts to produce expressive artworks to share with others. There is now a number of interesting apps designed specifically for scrapbooking and unlike traditional softwares (e.g Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Digital Image Pro) that pose a real challenging learning curve for beginners, these apps are easy and simple to use and do not require any advanced photo editing skills. The list below comprises some of what we think are the best scrapbooking apps to use with your students. Check them out and share with us if you have other suggestions to add to the list.

Using keyboard shortcuts is a quick way to perform actions. macOS has its own set of shortcuts, and I’ve put together a list of iPad keyboard shortcuts. These work in Apple apps, although third-party apps may have their own set of shortcuts.

The internet is one massive distraction. One minute I'm aggressively knocking out my to-do list, and the next I'm sucked into a "Which Harry Potter character are you?" quiz (Ron). Notifications from Facebook, Slack, and Skype, not to mention alerts on my phone, pull my attention away from what I should be doing. When I need to block these distractions and focus, however, I can turn to some apps for help.

Apps that help people focus work in a variety of ways. Some are browser extensions that block you from seeing certain websites. Others are desktop apps that hide from view anything except the active window. Some apps gently nudge you from bad behavior while others aggressively stop you from going down a rabbit hole. Which apps you choose to use will largely depend on how strict you want them to be.

To paraphrase The Bard, what’s in a certification? According to the authors of a study on the privacy protections in children’s apps, perhaps not much.

A recent study, published in the journal Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, looked at whether 237 apps certified compliant with the child privacy law, COPPA, do a better job safeguarding privacy than a larger sample of non-certified apps. Overall, they found little difference between apps that were certified and those that weren’t—and in some cases suggested certified apps may present even bigger security lapses.

"Your smartphone is packed with sensors and miniaturized equipment. Instead of using them to snap photos or message friends, harness those instruments for the sake of science. Software can turn a phone into a mobile science laboratory, letting you make research observations, track earthquakes, study birds and stars and the elements, and even project a virtual particle accelerator. Here are some of our favorite apps for doing science on your smartphone."

At last count, there were over 80,000 educational apps available to teachers. There are apps for everything: literacy, STEM, productivity, audiovisual, etc. There are apps which improve accessibility for students with different learning challenges, i.e. text to voice, voice to text, etc.

While many of these may be a dream come true for educators, the dizzying array of choices is also a nightmare. Teachers just don’t have time to filter through thousands of apps to find the one that works best for the needs of their students. To help, we started to create curated lists of the best apps in a variety of education related categories. In this installment, we will present the best apps for kids age in the Ninth Grade.

At last count, there were over 80,000 educational apps available to teachers. There are apps for everything: literacy, STEM, productivity, audiovisual, etc. There are apps which improve accessibility for students with different learning challenges, i.e. text to voice, voice to text, etc.

While many of these may be a dream come true for educators, the dizzying array of choices is also a nightmare. Teachers just don’t have time to filter through thousands of apps to find the one that works best for the needs of their students. To help, we started to create curated lists of the best apps in a variety of education related categories. In this installment, we will present the best grammar and writing apps for middle school students.

With our 50 Essential iOS Apps series, the goal was to help you find some of the best apps for iPhone and iPad. Picking the finest offerings from the more than 2.2 million iOS apps in Apple’s App Store proved challenging. But we highlighted apps that offer excellent features or make life easier in various ways.

Unused apps on your phone can do more harm than simply taking up space.

We’re using our personal devices like our phones and our tablets more than ever during distance learning. But did you know that unused apps are not only slowing you down but may also be a serious security risk?

Inspired by an article in Popular Science, I’ve cleaned up and cleared off nearly 2GB of stuff I really didn’t need. 

Every year at Hollywood award shows, we see fantastic movies celebrated for their rich storytelling and dynamic performances. Your students can become moviemakers, too, thanks to some powerful apps for mobile devices. With these tools, your children can take videos and edit their work to make professional quality movies using iOS devices (iPads and iPhones) and Android tablets.

One good thing about this easy-to-use technology is that students can still use important English language arts skills like writing a narrative, planning a sequential story, and including key details when getting ready to make a movie. These apps can enhance the work that you are doing with children in the classroom and give them room to be creative storytellers.

This week testing season officially begins. Edtech products can play an important role in students’ preparation for exams, as well as supporting extending learning beyond the classroom throughout the year. Here are 11 edtech products helping to ease the pressure on students and teachers at what can be a stressful time of year.

Below is a collection of iPad apps we have particularly curated for art lovers.  Students can use these applications to unleash their expressive power and enhance their creative thinking skills.  The apps feature a wide variety of tools and features (e.g.,built-in  brushes, fonts, stencils, text, shapes, and more) that make art-making a fun and engaging activity. Students can use them to doodle, draw, and sketch their artwork and share them with others.

The iPad can be so may different things. I use mine for reading, writing, making music, watching movies, and if I have any time to waste, I might play a game. The iPad is pretty much the ultimate creative tool, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t sit back and “consume” the odd “content” every once in a while.

"Hundreds of apps can follow your movements and share the details with advertisers, retailers and even hedge funds. Here’s how to limit the snooping."

School children are constantly engaging with their peers on digital technology and social networking sites such as Instagram, Snapchat and Musical.ly. While it is sometimes harmful - reports of cyberbullying cases are increasingly commonplace - digital technology also comes with considerable benefits. Below are some of the top e-health tools that enable pupils, and those supporting them, to access mental health and wellbeing advice at the click of a button.

Augmented reality technologies are transforming the way we live, learn and interact with each other. They are creating limitless learning possibilities and are empowering learners with  the required know-how to get immersed in meaningful learning experiences. We have already reviewed several educational AR tools and apps and have also shared this collection of excellent TED talks on the educational potential of AR technologies. Drawing on these resources together with EdSurge list, we have prepared for you this updated collection of some of the best AR apps to use in your instruction. You may want to go through them and see which ones work  for you.